1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in bilingual dictionaries which facilitate self-instruction in a foreign language in which words in a first language are listed in a column in alphabetical order. Words in the second language are placed adjacent to the words in the first language which correspond in meaning.
2. Description of Related Art
Students who know one language and wish to learn another are often gratified to discover that they in fact already know a number of words in the second language. These are words identical in meaning and identical or very similar in spelling in both languages. In particular, persons who know English will find many such words while studying Germanic, Celtic, or Italic languages. Unfortunately, the student often does not realize the existence of these words or recognize that the student has a vocabulary already at hand in the "other" language. These words are "known but not felt". This invention aids the student in recognition of these words and thereby expands the student's effective vocabulary in the new language.
U.S. Pat. No. 683,267 discloses educational media, such as a book, card, chart, or the like, having the syllables of a word appearing in contrasting colors.
U.S. Pat. No. 778,110 discloses cards used in teaching languages in which the tinting of the card is used to indicate the gender of nouns.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,271,884 discloses a self-instruction aid in which bound sheets having lists of words in the basic and foreign languages are aligned to facilitate association.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,284 discloses cathode ray tube generated graphic material displays using at least one color pair for better display of linguistic, literary, semantic, related, or stylistic features of such material.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,450 discloses a reading system and method of printing for faster reading in which printed sheets are provided with a vertical extending scan bar. Short lines of indicia are printed perpendicular to the scan bar with scan words therein printed in a bolder or different colored type font.
These prior art inventions do not accomplish the objectives of the present invention, that of aiding the language student by emphasizing the number of words in the foreign language which he or she already knows.